Sunday, December 29, 2013Giants' Will Beatty has a broken leg
By Dan GrazianoESPN.com

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Will Beatty entered the 2013 season with high hopes. Having signed a five-year free-agent contract last offseason to be the New York Giants' franchise left tackle, Beatty planned to build off his strong 2012 campaign and show he was worth the commitment. He did not. Beatty struggled through a miserable season along with the rest of the Giants' offensive line.

Beatty

The low point of Beatty's year, until Sunday, was the Dec. 1 game in Washington, in which Redskins linebacker Brian Orakpo toyed with him and harassed Eli Manning all day. Beatty said after that game that he was looking forward to another shot at Orakpo in Week 17. But he didn't get that either, as Orakpo missed Sunday's season finale at MetLife Stadium with a groin injury.

But Beatty's season came to a literally painful end Sunday when he suffered a broken leg in the third quarter of the team's season-ending victory over the Redskins and had to be carted off the field. Beatty was jumping to try to corral (or maybe bat down) a tipped pass from Curtis Painter when he took a direct hit on the leg from a Redskins player. The leg snapped instantly, as a gruesome replay showed, and Giants coach Tom Coughlin said he didn't know the extent of the injury.

"That’s a fracture of some type," Coughlin said. "I’m not exactly sure, tib[ula], fib[ula] or just one of those. I don’t have that information for you, but he’s hurt."

If Beatty's injury is severe enough to threaten his offseason or even the start of the 2014 season, the Giants would be in major trouble. They already need three new starters on the offensive line, with Kevin Boothe and David Diehl set to hit free agency and David Baas and Chris Snee potential cap cuts. If Beatty is a question mark for 2014, right tackle Justin Pugh would be the only set starter as of now.